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A podcast for fundraisers who want ideas, examples and inspiration to help you raise more money for your charity or non-profit.
Rob is an author and award-winning fundraising trainer. Each week he and his guests share examples of successful fundraising, as well as lots of practical tips to help you apply these techniques in your own job.
Rob is an author and award-winning fundraising trainer. Each week he and his guests share examples of successful fundraising, as well as lots of practical tips to help you apply these techniques in your own job.
154 Episodes
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In our second interview with the experienced philanthropy advisor Tom Hall, we share a fundamental element that most wealthy philanthropists are looking for when deciding whether to make a major gift.Tom is Managing Director, Global Head of Social Impact and Philanthropy at UBS and over the last ten years he has had conversations with more than 4000 High Net Worth Individuals about their philanthropy. Through these conversations and in witnessing many transformational donations Tom has gained valuable insight into how they make decisions.In this, our second interview, Tom shares the second crucial element that philanthropists especially value in requests for funding from charities. And he shares various tips to help fundraisers improve this element of their proposition.Thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with your team or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.
What do wealthy donors most prize when they weigh up whether to make a major investment in a charity? In 10 years as a philanthropy advisor at UBS bank, Tom Hall has had conversations about philanthropy with more than 4000 wealthy people, and he has witnessed a vast number of major gifts. This opportunity has given him precious insight into their psychology and the factors that have the biggest impact on their decisions. In this conversation Tom and Rob share which one element of your charities’ proposition is more important than all the rest, if you want to attract major donations at a transformational level. And Tom shares his tips for how charities can make use of this insight to increase income. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.
One of the best ways to grow fundraising income is to find ways to add value to relationships with supporters and partners. This makes sense in theory, but how do you do it in practice, and with consistency, especially if your resources are limited? Events can be very effective! Though many charities use them to raise funds directly, it is less common to regularly use events for stewardship and to inspire subsequent support or partnerships. In this episode Chris Salt describes the event strategy that his relatively small charity uses to inspire existing and potential corporate partners. The approach has helped fuel his charity’s best ever year of corporate fundraising results. To help you weigh up whether something similar could help your own fundraising, Chris shares how they do it and what they’ve learned. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.
There are many ways to deepen relationships with people who care about your good cause. At Bright Spot, one of our favourites is to create Wow Moments - something that makes them feel great or helps them connect with your charity at a deeper level compared to what most would expect. Sometimes this involves a creative, ambitious approach that other charities wouldn’t even think of. But just as often, the ‘wow’ is experienced by your supporter because you do something thoughtful and bespoke, rather than something especially surprising. What’s great about this is that these ideas are very do-able! And what’s difficult about it is that they are also easy to not do, (or manage to do regularly). They often take a little extra effort. To give you new ideas, and maybe a nudge of inspiration to make time for your existing good idea, Ben and Rob share various Wow Moments that have inspired them recently. They share examples of smart fundraisers taking part in Bright Spot’s recent Corporate Mastery and Major Gifts Mastery Programmes. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for example, by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.
When you concentrate more effort developing relationships with a relatively small number of supporters or corporate partners with high potential, it becomes much easier to grow high value income. We’ve also found that although this idea makes sense to many people in theory, it can be hard to apply in practice. So what can you do to overcome the various barriers to more focused and effective relationship-building with partners / supporters / funders? Using examples of successful partnerships and major gift fundraising growth from people on Bright Spot’s recent mastery programmes, in this episode Rob and Ben share techniques to help you harness the power of highly focused effort. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.
An effective way to grow fundraising income is to add value to relationships with high value supporters. But how do find ways to do it? One approach is to start looking at your existing resources differently. When you ask yourself what potential assets you could make use of, rather than what is difficult for your charity; and what you can give (to relationships with supporters) rather than what you can get from them… amazing things become possible. To help you look again at opportunities (that might be under your nose), Rob and Ben share stories of creative, determined fundraisers doing things a bit differently and creating WOW moments for their donors / supporters. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, e.g. by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.
What can fundraisers do to increase our chances of securing large, multi-year donations from trusts and charitable foundations? Rob was delighted to talk to Caroline Danks, a wise fundraiser with 20 years’ experience of working with Trusts and Foundations. In the last two years, three different charities she’s worked with have received six-figure, multi-year grants. Caroline noticed a clear pattern across all three examples. Caroline and Rob discuss the four factors common to all three successes and explore ideas and tips to help you make use of them in your own fundraising with trusts and foundations. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for instance by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn and on X / twitter Caroline is @LarkOwlUK and Rob is @woods_rob.
One greatly under-estimated tool for building relationships with potential funders, corporate partners and major donors, is LinkedIn. But what’s the most effective approach? Rob was delighted to talk to fundraising and LinkedIn expert Michelle Benson. After many years as a fundraiser and grant giver, Michelle has found that most fundraisers are failing to make the most of this potent tool for success in major donor / trusts / corporate partnerships fundraising. Michelle and Rob discuss an approach which is different to what most people usually do. Rather than you chase them, a better way is to attract your ideal funders and partners to seek you out and want to develop relationships with you! She explains exactly why it’s so effective to do things differently, as well as a few simple habits that will help you get conversations with the right partners and funders for your charity. We’d love to know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for instance by sharing it with colleagues or on social media. We are both on LinkedIn (!) and on X / twitter Rob is @woods_rob.
There are plenty of factors that make fundraising difficult at the moment. Whether it’s the cost of living crisis, the pace of change, the sense of political chaos, shorter attention spans etc…it’s true that connecting with people who care about your cause can feel harder than ever. So what can we do to defy the odds and achieve great fundraising results, in spite of the challenges? For clear answers and encouragement, Rob was delighted to talk to best-selling author and marketing expert, Grant Leboff. He explains why taking steps to increase genuine human connection is so powerful and offers a range of things you can do to achieve this in practice. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help other charities – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on X / twitter Grant is @grantleboff and I am @woods_rob.
Is silo working inevitable in charities? Or is it possible to create a culture where it’s the norm for the different teams to proactively help each other, so that efforts combine to make a bigger difference? This is the second part of Rob’s interview about integrated working with the brilliant Joe Jenkins. They build on the Team of Teams concept from Part 1, and the amazing difference it makes to both results and trust between teams. Joe shares how one charity applied these ideas in three important projects, improving results and working relationships with each iteration. Finally he shares practical tips to help anyone ‘be the change they want to see’ in their day to day work, whether or not they currently hold a formal leadership position. Let us know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for instance by sharing it! We are both on Linked In, and on X / twitter we are @MrJoeJenkins and @woods_rob.
One of the biggest sources of stress for people working in charities is conflict between teams. Many find that however committed they are, and however hard they work, the default structure and culture often hamper genuine cooperation and progress toward a common goal. Given how difficult this problem can be, Rob was thrilled to talk to Joe Jenkins, who has given more thought and energy to solving it than anyone he has interviewed. Joe shares what happened when he worked for Friends of the Earth over a decade ago, when the leadership team did certain things to reduce silo-thinking and nurture conditions for success. Joe explains it was this effort, especially in terms of structure, culture and a shared vision, that enabled the charity to later create the hugely successful and award-winning Bee Campaign. If you’d like ideas and encouragement for how to build a co-operative, empowered and effective culture, we hope this episode will help. Let us know what you think! And thank you for supporting our show, for instance by sharing it! We are both on Linked In, and on X / twitter we are @MrJoeJenkins and @woods_rob.
Rob is again joined by Bright Spot colleague and fellow fundraising trainer Ben Swart to talk about some of the episodes that most inspired us in 2023. Our discussion of fundraising ideas and examples includes: how to ace your event or media appeal (ie what content makes all the difference to results); ways to beat the Curse of Knowledge – and how one charity did this to raise five times more than the average through their appeal; ideas to help you succeed in spite of very competitive trust application processes; and how to create a culture where people genuinely value failure / learning as a way to grow fundraising results. If you’d like to get in touch or share this episode with other charities, THANK YOU! You can find us both on Linked In and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.
If you’d like practical lessons and a bunch of encouraging stories from our fundraising podcast in 2023, or you’d like tips on what to listen to next, we recorded this special episode for you! Rob is joined by Bright Spot colleague and fellow fundraising trainer Ben Swart for this round up of our podcasting year. They pull out key insights from some episodes they’ve found most inspiring to listen to, including: tactics for corporate fundraisers to win multiple partnerships; ideas to further your mission through partnerships; how to use the Top 20 Rule to grow income with any group of supporters or donors; how to be more bold and innovative in your fundraising… and lots more. If you’d like to get in touch or share this episode with other charities, THANK YOU! You can find us both on Linked In and on X / twitter Ben is @benswart and Rob is @woods_rob.
This time we’re looking at capital campaigns and appeals, and in particular how to make them work if the charity you work for is relatively small. Successful appeals are not an easy undertaking for any charity, but there are at least examples of various famous appeals by well-known charities in books about fundraising. Given how many smaller charities need to raise an extra injection of funding for an important new project, I wanted to share a story from a fundraiser who has managed a successful capital campaign in an organisation with fewer resources. I was delighted talk to Steph Pisharody, an experienced fundraiser who worked for many years as Head of Development at St Albans Cathedral. She was there throughout their campaign to raise a seven figure sum for a new heritage and community project. I loved hearing Steph’s reflections on how they did it! Whether or not you’re embarking on your own campaign, I hope you find her insights and examples as helpful as I did. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help other charities – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on X / twitter I am @woods_rob.
Just occasionally we (hopefully) have a bigger opportunity to reach more people and raise money. Whether it’s being chosen for a media appeal that reaches thousands or millions; or the chance to tell your charity story at an event in front of hundreds of people…there are a few moments when the fundraising rewards can be HUGE…if we get it right. So what can you do to maximise the potential of these valuable opportunities? For shrewd insights and examples, Rob was thrilled to interview Sally Flatman. In her many years as producer of BBC Radio 4 appeal, Sally worked with hundreds of charities on their appeals. Their results varied widely! In fact, a few of them raised more than five times the average! What did the ones that truly smashed it, do differently or better? Whether you plan to do your own media appeal one day, or simply want some examples to apply to your upcoming event / pitch / proposal / Christmas appeal, Sally’s examples can help. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help other charities – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on X / twitter Sally is @flatmansally and I am @woods_rob.
Changes in technology over the last three decades mean our supporters’ now have less time, and more demands on their attention, than at any point in history. This makes it tougher than ever to deepen relationships with people who care about our cause. In this environment, what can we do to create effective marketing and communications? To better understand the issues, Rob was delighted to talk to best-selling author and marketing expert, Grant Leboff. Grant routinely advises both companies and charities on effective marketing and communications strategies in the fast-changing world we live in. In the interview, he explains why your supporter’s attention is more precious than ever, and what your charity can do to get and keep it. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help other charities – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on X / twitter Grant is @grantleboff and I am @woods_rob.
Many charities see the advantages of creating strategic, long-term partnerships with companies, rather than applying for those intensely competitive Charity of the Year partnerships. But how do you initially approach companies where there is a good fit? Even after you get that first meeting, how do you inspire them to want to partner? And how do you solve the challenges in bringing your two organisations together to achieve something that works really well for both parties? It’s not easy, but its less daunting if you can hear insights from someone who has already done these things. So I was delighted to be able to talk to Pippa Hind-Walsh, a smart fundraiser in a fairly small charity called Family Fund. She talks us through the process of approaching and building a fabulous, strategic partnership with McCain Foods, which has been worth well over £1m to the charity. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help other charities – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on twitter I am @woods_rob.
Some types of cause are less popular than others. If your charity is relatively less attractive to many people, what can you do to raise funds successfully? Rob talks to the experienced major gift fundraiser, Sarah Jane O’Neill, about things you can do to raise funds in spite of the challenges, whatever cause you serve. They share tips, practical tactics and examples of how fundraisers have overcome the difficulties of being less popular. And Sarah Jane shares top line findings from her new thesis exploring factors that can make it harder to secure high value donations for female domestic abuse charities. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help other charities – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on X / twitter, where Sarah Jane is @s_joneill and I am @woods_rob.
What can you do to build warm, generous relationships with High Net Worth individuals who care about your cause? Rob talks to Paul Davies, who at the time worked for an orchestra and charity named Manchester Camerata. Paul explains a range of ideas from the Major Gifts Mastery Programme that he used to transform his results, including: what he focuses on to feel so confident when meeting supporters; how he quadrupled the number of supporters he speaks to each month, to 20 per month; and the amazing results this created for his charities’ appeal. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help colleagues or other good causes – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on Twitter / X we are @paulj_davies and @woods_rob.
In just four years, the small UK charity Talk Club has grown rapidly, making an ever bigger difference to the community it serves. There are now 78 talk clubs where men can talk, listen and improve their mental fitness. In this episode Ben Akers (Joint CEO) and Rob Woods discuss the innovative approach that has helped achieve this growth. An important theme is the power of being crystal clear of your outcome and working back from there to decide your tactics. They explore how this increases your confidence to do things differently and resist more orthodox strategies. They also talk about knowing your reason why; keeping things simple; understanding your target audience and speaking their language; and strategic partnerships that intrinsically help achieve your mission, ie as well as generating income. If you want to share this episode because you think it will help other charities – THANK YOU! - we are both on Linked In and on X / twitter, where Ben is @BenAkers and I am @woods_rob.
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